The Life You Think You Deserve
by fbeauchamphartz
Summary: Sebastian is making a huge change in his life, and he's starting by going to Kurt, a man with a specific talent that will help Sebastian move on. Skank!Kurt H. Sebastian S. Warning for mention of self-harm scars and an image including blood. Nothing bloody or gory in the story.


**A/N: **_Written for the Kurtbastian hiatus project prompt 'free day'. Warning for anxiety, forced relationship due to homophobia, mention of self-harm scars and (on an unrelated note) an image including blood. (No gore in this.)_

Sebastian paces outside the run-down, red-bricked, residential loft that he had to bribe a taxi cab driver to take him to. He can honestly say that he has never feared for his life before tonight, so he can chalk this up as a first on his list of life experiences. He runs his hands up and down his arms while he tries to decide whether he will push the buzzer for the door or not. No matter what happens, he came here willingly, so he has no one to blame but himself.

The loft is located on a filthy side street in Bushwick – a neighborhood in Brooklyn that Sebastian didn't even know existed until a few months ago. He looks around at the stacks upon stacks of black trash bags, some brittle and disintegrating in the cold, piled up along the curbs, left to degrade as the garbage trucks seem to have forgotten that Bushwick exists. Sebastian side-eyes a multitude of young men in black jackets with their faces covered, all shooting him curious looks. He had tried his best to _dress down_ in an effort to blend in, but in his khaki pants and Burberry peacoat, he sticks out like a sore thumb. Sebastian is neither too proud nor ashamed to admit that this is definitely not his element. Yes, Sebastian could have probably lived happily the rest of his life having never come here, but now that he's here, he'd feel like a coward if he backed out.

Sebastian hears hurried footsteps race down a staircase beyond the metal door in front of him, and he pauses in his tracks to see who comes out. Maybe he can slip through the door quietly when whoever on the other side leaves, and he can continue his pacing inside.

The door only opens a crack and a man's face peeks out – an unnaturally pale face with a shock of teal hair sticking up from his forehead and piercings on almost every conceivable piece of skin. His lipstick is dark purple, nearly black, though it's difficult to tell the subtle differences beneath the orange glow of the arc sodium street lights. He stares at Sebastian – icy blue eyes ringed in black eyeliner – not blinking for nearly a full minute, which Sebastian finds alarming.

"Are you coming upstairs?" those dark lips say in a high-pitched voice that Sebastian did not outwardly expect, but which kind of fits the face. "Or are you going to pace back and forth out here all night? You're making my neighbors nervous."

"Why?" Sebastian asks with a touch of a smirk on his lips. "Do they think I'm casing the joint?"

The pale man's eyebrow shoots almost as far up as his teal hair, and the smirk on his lips seems to mirror Sebastian's.

"Sort of," he says, opening the door wider and stepping back to let Sebastian in. "You look like a fucking fed." Sebastian walks through the doorway, shivering the moment the heat of the hallway hits him. He catches the pale man shaking his head. "Casing the joint," he chuckles as he closes the door and throws about fifteen bolts to lock it tight. "Who are you? Columbo?"

"I'm Sebastian…actually…" he replies lamely, following the man as he leads him up the stairs.

"I know that," the man says, throwing a look over his shoulder. "I was keeping an eye out for you. You're not the kind of man who usually comes all the way out to Bushwick looking for my particular services."

"Really?" Sebastian asks, intrigued. "What kind of man am I?"

"Privileged," the man answers quickly and with a bit of a sneer, "private school boy, captain of industry, with more money than you deserve."

"Wow," Sebastian says with a dry, unamused chuckle, "you definitely don't pull punches."

"Don't need to," the man says, turning around a corner and climbing up another long staircase. "You're paying me to be here, and your credit card's already cleared."

"So, wait," Sebastian says, catching on to the man's words, "you were watching me for the last half hour while I was outside, freezing my ass off?"

"Yeah," the man says unapologetically. "From my fire escape."

"Why didn't you let me in earlier?" Sebastian gripes, a latent chill running up his spine to remind him how cold it is outside.

"Because I wanted to see what you would do," the man says, turning the corner to yet another staircase. "Besides, our appointment was for eight, and it's eight right now."

Sebastian looks up past the man at the remaining stairs and groans internally. Who the hell lives in an apartment with this many stairs and no elevator?

"So, do you know who_ I_ am?" the man asks when Sebastian goes quiet.

"Your name's Kurt, right?" Sebastian answers, hoping he's right. He has the feeling that this man - who he's about to become very intimate with in the next few minutes - will be extremely offended if he's not.

"Very good," Kurt says with a smile that the devil himself might wear on Sundays. It makes Sebastian's voice catch in his throat.

"Are…are you allowed to be doing this out of your loft?" Sebastian asks, rolling his eyes around the staircase around them – the awkwardly long steps and the antique scrolled wood railing in odd contrast to the otherwise industrial feel of the building.

"These are all working lofts," Kurt explains. "All the people who live here are artists who work out of their homes, and since what I do qualifies as an art, so do I."

"You think so?" Sebastian asks, the words slipping out before he can stop them.

Kurt stops at the next landing and leads Sebastian down the hall to one of the only two doors on the floor. Sebastian waits for the fall-out from his remark, but Kurt smiles wider and winks at him.

"I know so," he says, grabbing the door handle and sliding open the immense door.

Kurt gestures for Sebastian to enter his loft, following behind to close and lock the door after him.

Sebastian turns in a circle as he walks, looking the loft up and down. It's a dark space – oppressively dark, a reflection of the uncomfortable and unsafe atmosphere of the street outside. The walls are brick, but painted in abstract swirling patterns that fluoresce under the numerous black lights hanging from tracks along the beams of the ceiling. There are art prints hanging nearly everywhere alongside mirrors that make this enormous space seem even bigger. There's a whole lot of nothing furniture-wise – a kitchen with no table, a living room with no sofa. The only furniture in the whole loft, it seems, are two chairs over by the window, and a king-sized bed off to the far end.

It's Kurt's bed that seems to have Sebastian captivated. It looks pristinely made, with a designer comforter tucked in above crisp white sheets and a mass of pillows in all sizes stacked neatly along the headboard.

Kurt snaps his fingers in Sebastian's face as he passes in front of him, drawing his attention to the two chairs by the window – one a regular rolling stool, and the other a large, vintage-looking barber's chair. Kurt settles down in the rolling stool and pulls up to a black counter, which had been obscured from view originally by the shadows in the room. Kurt flips on a few lamps and bright white light floods that corner of the loft.

Sebastian approaches the barber's chair, peeling off his peacoat and swallowing hard. He has sudden flashbacks of an old CSI episode he once saw where some mob guy would castrate men in a chair just like this one. As he gets closer to it, it looks impeccably clean. Castration would probably leave a lot of blood stains – stains that even a really thorough person might miss - so the fact that this chair looks relatively brand new has to count for something.

Sebastian drapes his coat over the back of the chair and settles down into it, the thick cushion sucking him in, the red vinyl cover squeaking loudly as it accommodates his weight. It's the kind of chair that you have to recline in, and the moment his back touches it, he feels himself relax even though his mind is still a whirl of alarm.

Sebastian watches as Kurt sets up his station – laying out inks and making adjustments to his tattoo gun. He steps on a pedal and listens to the machine buzz, then shuts it off and makes more adjustments.

Sebastian's brain aches with a need to interrogate this man on everything from his stark apartment to the color of his hair, but only one question burns to be asked.

"So," Sebastian says, clearing his throat, "are you really psychic?"

"I have a reputation…" Kurt says, stepping on the pedal again, "for having certain abilities. But no answer I give will matter if you don't think I am."

Kurt only glances at Sebastian, his brief stare a challenge.

"I don't believe in psychics," Sebastian says, folding his hands in his lap and looking straight up at the ceiling where a row of black light bulbs glow a metallic purple, lending color to Kurt's skin when he rolls in and out of the low light.

"Then why are you here?"

"Because, like you said, my credit card already cleared," Sebastian replies, being as evasive as possible. If Kurt is really psychic, then he should know why Sebastian is there waiting to be tortured.

"Why are you here?" Kurt repeats, paying no mind to Sebastian's previous snarky remark. Sebastian frowns – he was trying to prove a point, which he may have well proven, but he'll feel like an ignorant ass making an issue of it.

"You came _highly_ recommended," Sebastian says, which is as close to the truth as anything else.

"By Andy, right?" Kurt asks, putting his gun down carefully and pulling out a box of latex gloves. "The chic with the circular rainbow on her shoulder?"

"Yeah," Sebastian nods, not wanting to sound impressed that this man seemed to know off the top of his head who Sebastian had mentioned recommending him when he made this appointment over six months ago. "She said you gave it to her for good luck."

Kurt looks up at the slight note of derision Sebastian can't seem to hide. He carries it like it's embedded in his DNA.

"What?" Kurt asks. "You don't think the poor woman deserves a little luck?"

Sebastian agrees in his mind that she does. After three failed marriages and two miscarriages, the woman deserves all the luck she can get, but Sebastian doesn't see how a tattoo is supposed to give that to her.

Sebastian keeps tight-lipped as he watches Kurt work. Kurt sees the determined thin set of Sebastian's mouth and rolls his eyes.

"So, what were you thinking about getting?" Kurt asks, turning in his chair to face Sebastian completely.

"Aren't _you_ supposed to tell me what I want?" Sebastian asks with a bitter edge. "Isn't that your shtick? My body is your canvas or some shit?"

"Huh," Kurt half-chuckles. He sits with his back resting against his counter and looks at Sebastian again, this time taking particular interest in Sebastian's moss green eyes. Kurt stares until Sebastian feels uneasy with this man's eyes on him, staring like he knows too much – staring like he knows everything. Kurt licks his dry lips, reaching to his counter and grabbing a bottle of water. "You don't really want to get a tattoo," Kurt starts. "That's why you're so willing to put the decision into my hands. Not because you think I have any real psychic talent." Kurt takes a drink from his water bottle. "And you're right. I don't"

"So, what am I…"

"You're paying for the benefit of my expertise," Kurt says. He stands from his chair and walks over to Sebastian. Placing one knee between Sebastian's legs and leaning in close, he grabs Sebastian by the jaw and tilts his head down so he can look into Sebastian's eyes. Again he stares, the black of his pupils wider now, pushing the icy blue of his irises aside, making his eyes look very much like an owl's eyes – dangerous and unreadable. "You're changing lives," Kurt whispers, his breath ghosting over Sebastian's lips at this close distance, "job, address, the whole shebang. And you're here because you need to cover up some…scars…" Kurt's eyes drift down to the long sleeves of Sebastian's dress shirt, pulled down to his wrist and buttoned tight at the cuff.

Kurt looks back up to Sebastian's face, but instead of inscrutable and cold, his blue eyes are sympathetic.

It's a sympathy that borders on pity, and Sebastian doesn't want pity.

"So, you're a good guesser," Sebastian says, darting his eyes away, feeling exposed and violated that this man figured him out so easily when his closest friends and family hadn't even tried. "Besides, everybody's got scars. That doesn't make me any different." Kurt pulls away slowly, standing up straighter, his fingers trailing down Sebastian's arm, brushing Sebastian's wrist before they disappear. Kurt stares again, and Sebastian feels as if another layer of his soul is being stripped bare. He's about to give up, to stand from the chair and leave, a thousand dollars be damned, but Kurt's eyes drop back to Sebastian's cuff and with swift fingers he starts to undo the buttons.

"This one's the worst," Kurt mumbles as he works the buttons open. "Your left wrist, because you're right handed."

Sebastian's rational mind thinks he should pull his hand away before Kurt sees, but his heart – which has been screaming out for weeks for someone to notice that nothing is okay in his life, that he's in unbearable pain – wants Kurt to see.

He wants someone to share the burden of his secret.

Kurt undoes the last button, but the marks had been visible after the first, and Kurt looks at the silvery shadows of these violent, angry scars with regret in his eyes.

He doesn't like uncovering people's secrets – he just happens to be good at it.

"I…I wasn't trying to kill myself," Sebastian says, his hand trembling slightly beneath Kurt's fingers.

"I know," Kurt says softly. "I can help you with this." The caress of Kurt's eyes on Sebastian's skin is soft, but his fingertips are softer. "What did your wife say when she found out?"

Kurt doesn't look at Sebastian's face when he asks his question, working now on the buttons of his right cuff to see the matching marks. He doesn't need to look at Sebastian to see his wide eyes and his jaw hanging open.

"How did you…"

"The tan line on your left ring finger," Kurt says, undoing the last button and running his fingers delicately over the scars he uncovers there. "It's narrow, part of a matching set, but not something a man would normally choose for himself unless he had small hands and you…" Kurt lets a smile slip as he opens Sebastian's curled fingers, "_definitely_ do not have small hands."

Sebastian's return smile wobbles at the corners.

"She hasn't," Sebastian admits. "I left her. I didn't give her a reason."

"But the reason is you don't love her. You never did love her," Kurt declares boldly, and even though it's true, Sebastian flinches. "You had to marry her…" Kurt laces their fingers together, "but your heart never beat that way."

Kurt looks deep into Sebastian's eyes, trying to unearth more, but Sebastian doesn't imagine there's anything more there for him to see. It's true – all of it – but it doesn't feel like truth because Sebastian hasn't confessed any of it. He needs to start speaking for himself.

"I married her because I was expected to," Sebastian says. Kurt unlaces their fingers, stepping away to finally take his seat. He rolls Sebastian's sleeve up to his elbow and grabs his tattoo gun. He turns the machine on and dips the needles in a cup of ink. The machine buzzes like an angry wasp in Kurt's hands, and he holds it still, the needles barely an inch above Sebastian's skin.

"Keep talking," Kurt says, waiting patiently for Sebastian to continue.

"My father…" the words came out, and then a hiss as Kurt touched the machine and their driving needles onto the sensitive skin of Sebastian's wrist.

"Yes," Kurt says, concentrating on the mark he's made, blending the red ink with the silver scar on Sebastian's wrist.

"My father is old money," Sebastian grinds out between his teeth, mentally scolding himself for being a wuss. "He's also an asshole, a misogynist…a homophobe…"

"A Republican?" Kurt asks, giving Sebastian only a moment to breathe while he switches inks. Sebastian chuckles before the needles hit his skin again.

"My dad makes Republicans look compassionate," Sebastian says, biting his tongue to keep from embarrassing himself by whimpering.

"Jesus," Kurt comments, whistling low, "that sucks." He looks back up at Sebastian, who's squinting into the darkness, his jaw locked, his face tense, his breathing coming a little too fast. "Try to relax, sweetheart," Kurt says in an oddly soothing voice, "or you're going to pass out before we're even halfway done."

Sebastian takes in a deep breath of air and lets it out slowly as the gun assaults his skin again.

"That's better," Kurt says. "So, tell me more about this asshole father of yours."

"Well," Sebastian says, looking for a good place in his story to start. If he starts at the beginning then he'll have to mention the constant badgering he got to strive for good grades, the threats if he didn't succeed, if he didn't become the captain of the lacrosse team or the head of the debate team, the emotional manipulation that led him to Harvard instead of NYU, so he decides to start with his wife, Clarice. "My dad wants Smythe money to stay in the family – to be passed down from generation to generation. For that to happen, he needed his son – his only son – to get married and have kids."

"Did you ever tell him?" Kurt asks. Sebastian looks down at Kurt, hoping to see those icy eyes trained up at him, but Kurt's total focus is on the image erupting beneath his gun.

"No," Sebastian admits, scowling at his own weak voice. "He had started pressing me to find a wife since the day I started college – which was about when I had finally become comfortable with the idea of…" Sebastian stops mid-sentence, not wanting to speak his own truth out loud. Even now, as he is beginning to realize what is right for him, it still sounds wrong to say it.

The gun stops biting into his flesh, and Kurt does look up, tilting his head as he reads Sebastian's eyes.

"The idea of exploring your sexuality?" Kurt asks.

"Yeah." Sebastian nods and looks away. "Exactly."

"Did you ever…" Kurt's voice is strangely shy when he asks, though it could be the buzzing from the tattoo gun, Sebastian thinks, distorting the timbre of Kurt's voice.

"A few times," Sebastian answers, biting his lip, "but you know, I felt so Goddamned guilty that I didn't even enjoy it." Sebastian laughs out of anger, and then hisses when the needles find another sensitive area of skin.

"That's a shame," Kurt says, stopping for a moment to grab a paper towel, wet it, and wipe down the image so far. The soothing sensation only lasts a second before his skin burns hot beneath the tattoo gun again. "So, did you meet your wife in college?"

Sebastian smirks again.

"No, she's a…friend of the family," Sebastian says. His description sounds vague, and Kurt leaves it. "She was kind of chosen for me, so to speak."

"Was it an _arranged_ marriage?" Kurt asks incredulously without lifting his eyes from Sebastian's arm.

"No, not arranged," Sebastian laughs. "It was greatly _encouraged_." Sebastian sighs. "It might have well been arranged. By the time I asked her to marry me, I couldn't care less either way. I had been hounded and threatened with everything from being disowned to being locked away. She was as good as anyone else." Sebastian shakes his head. "The worst part is she's such a lovely woman. She deserves so much better."

"You both do," Kurt sighs, wiping the tattoo down again. Kurt returns to his work, and the studio goes silent, the buzz of the machine filling the air with its constant drone. Sebastian keeps his eyes fixed to the ceiling, intent on not peeking at the image until Kurt is done with his work. He feels Kurt finish with his left arm – over three hours worth of work – and spin the barber's chair around so he can move on to the right.

"So, where were you thinking of running?" Kurt pipes up halfway through the right arm.

"Hmmm?" Sebastian asks. In the quiet, his mind had started wandering – going over all the details, all the moments that had led up to this point. Was there ever a time where 5-, 10-, 16-year-old Sebastian could have stood up to his father? In retrospect, there were times where he might have been able to confront his father and act braver than he felt, but the reality is no. His father is a man that most grown adults don't try to talk to – not because he's so intimidating, but because there isn't any point in it. His father doesn't listen.

Sebastian let himself think about those boys he experimented with in college.

Adam – soft spoken, beautiful Adam.

Elliot –poli sci major. Sebastian was certain that Elliot, with his leather outfits and glam rock make-up, was the edgiest man he had ever met, but he's sure that Kurt could give him a run for his money.

Hunter – the only one of the bunch who had any chance of understanding what Sebastian was going through, but unlike Sebastian, Hunter had the balls to spit in his father's face and split.

Could any of those young men have been the real love of his life? Would any one of them have made him happy enough to bid his family and his inheritance farewell?

He even let his mind drift to another universe where he and Kurt could have met a long time ago, maybe even gone to the same school together. Kurt was so easy to talk to. Maybe it's an occupational hazard, spending so much time with people, listening to their life stories. Tattoos are very personal, or so he'd always been told by the few people he knew that had them, and in order to dish out a thousand dollars for a custom tattoo from a man with _psychic_ abilities, sight unseen, you have to have one hell of a story. Still, something about Kurt clicks in Sebastian's head, even if he doesn't have a name to put to it.

He would just like to know Kurt better.

"You're running away," Kurt says. "Do you have an idea which direction you're headed?"

"No, not really," Sebastian admits, which is one of the flaws in his plan. He took back his freedom, his life. Now he needs to know what to do with it. "Do you have any suggestions?"

"Well," Kurt says, turning back to his counter to change inks, "I think I would just travel America. Don't look for any one particular destination. Make the whole country your destination, _but…_" Kurt says pointedly, returning to Sebastian's arm, "I would definitely start in California."

"California?" Sebastian asks.

"Yeah," Kurt says, finishing up the shading on Sebastian's tattoo, "start off in San Francisco, start your own sexual revolution…" Kurt gives Sebastian a quick wink before he continues, "then hit the beach, get some sun. Head out to the desert. Glory in the big blue sky and all the quiet. Sleep in your car. Make friends with the locals. Eat some peyote. Find some enlightenment."

"It sounds like you've done it once or twice."

"Loads," Kurt admits. "As often as I can get away." Kurt turns off his gun and sets it down carefully. He wets another paper towel and pats down Sebastian's tattoo. He pulls Sebastian's arms together to look at the images side by side. "There," Kurt says, turning on a few more lights, "take a look."

Sebastian waits a second before his head snaps down to take in the image now permanently etched on his arms. The colors are vibrant – that's the first thing that hits him – more vibrant than he would have chosen if given the option. On his right arm Kurt has tattooed the picture of a rose in black and white. It looks hyper-real, like it was printed from an old photograph, but the rose itself is withering, curling at the petals, drawing back toward itself as it begins to die. The stem of the rose goes from brown to green, and seems to weave through his skin, breaking in and out of his arm, leaving blood in its wake. The stem becomes a vine, and the vine grows thorns – horrible, sharp thorns. The vine continues on to the next arm, and becomes wire – razor wire that curls and coils. It spirals at his forearm around a heart – an anatomically correct, extraordinarily authentic looking human heart. Sebastian stares at it, and the more he does, the more it looks like it's pulsing, thrumming on his skin, trying to break free from its metal cage. The heart bleeds, but it still beats in protest, and in the very center where the heart bleeds the most, Sebastian can see the razor wire starting to break.

But most importantly, the stem and the vines and the wires perfectly cover all of the scars that ran down Sebastian's skin. Nothing of them remains.

"It's…it's perfect…" Sebastian says, turning his arms to catch the way the colors light up his skin. "How did you…"

Kurt taps his finger against his forehead.

"Intuition," Kurt says. "That's all."

"Well, you're an amazing artist," Sebastian says, "it's just…" Sebastian can't stop smiling at the art on his skin, but his voice sounds a bit unsure.

"Just, what?" Kurt asks as he starts putting his inks away.

"It's so personal," Sebastian says in awe. "What do I tell people when they ask what it means?" Kurt lifts his eyes to meet Sebastian's, his gaze unforgiving.

"You got that tattoo for you, Sebastian," Kurt says, walking up to him and putting his hands on his upper arms, pinning him to the chair with the intensity of his stare. "You don't owe anyone an explanation." Kurt's lips crinkle sideways as he goes back to his counter. "Besides," he says, not meeting Sebastian's eyes again, "the guy you're going to be thinking about your entire trip, the one that you'll come back to when you decide that New York will always be your home, he'll understand what it means." Kurt returns with a handful of thick black pads and surgical tape. He spreads an ointment lightly over Sebastian's tattoo and then covers it with the pads, layering them so that the tape doesn't touch the tattooed skin. He tapes the pads down, then he pulls Sebastian's sleeves down to cover the taped areas, doing the buttons up again.

The entire time Kurt stands in front of him, dressing him, Sebastian holds his breath, trying to decipher what man? Who could Kurt mean? Could he possibly be referring to…

"Now, if you go to my website," Kurt says, reaching past Sebastian to grab his coat, "I have all the information you'll need for taking care of that tattoo." He opens Sebastian's coat and helps him into it.

"How can I repay you?" Sebastian asks, at a loss for how to express his gratitude, hoping he can parlay this into a roundabout way of asking Kurt out to dinner.

"Technically, you already paid me," Kurt laughs, taking Sebastian's hand and leading him from the loft. With every step down toward the exit, Sebastian feels his chance with this man slip away, and he realizes that regardless of his taking charge of his life and his giant, painful tattoo to the contrary, he's still a coward.

Otherwise, he would just open his mouth and ask this man out to dinner.

But he steps outside and the cold air hits him hard. He turns to face Kurt and the man with the icy blue eyes smiles.

"Thanks again," Sebastian says, stalling for time.

"You're welcome," Kurt replies, the door creaking slowly shut. Then it stops. "Actually, there's one more thing," Kurt says, walking out the door and into Sebastian's space, quickly threading his fingers into Sebastian's hair and fitting their mouths together.

It's not a long kiss, but it's a powerful one. It warms Sebastian straight to his feet in his shoes and to the roots of his hair where Kurt tugs lightly. Sebastian's arms come up to hold him, winding around Kurt's narrow waist, hands crawling up his back, but suddenly Kurt steps away, leaving Sebastian to chase his lips.

"Why…why did you do that?" Sebastian asks, opening his eyes and looking into Kurt's smiling face.

Kurt shrugs.

"Because I wanted to. Because you needed me to." Kurt backs away toward his loft door and slips through the doorway. "Call me when you get back," Kurt says, closing the door for good this time and leaving Sebastian out in a cold he no longer feels.


End file.
